To: Shari Weiss

To: Shari Weiss

From: CHAN HA

Date: December 2, 2014

Re: 10 things I have learned in this semester

In this memo, this is about the most important 10 things I have learned in this class during this semester. First of all, I learned the format of the memo and I have improved my writing skills of the business writing. I have also learned how to make the PowerPoint look more attractive and professional. Furthermore, I realized the importance of a good listener for a speaker. Last but not least, I have improved my presentation skills and understand the powerful of the teamwork.

1. Business memo: Business memo is very important in our future career because it is a common method of communication in offices. Business memo is different with the informal memo because it has to follow strict guidelines in terms of format, with a header, opening, summary and closing. I still remember that I really have no ideas about the formal memo in the beginning of the class and I did badly in my first memo. I have learned the format of the formal memo and I have improved the writing skills during this semester.

2. Business writing: business writing is different with other writings because it is more formal. For example, we should not talk something we are not sure or understanding. One of the most important things of business writing is simplification because most of writings have clutter problem. Therefore, less words is always better than more words in business writing.

3. PowerPoint: PowerPoint is a useful software and it is necessary in a business presentation. The presenter should have a good and suitable PowerPoint so the audienceswill not be distractedbythePowerPoint. There are some recommendations for the PowerPoint. We should choose blue as our background color because blue color is a good color and it represents trust and credibility. The presenters should use no less than 30-point font size so it helps the presenters to limit the words in PowerPoint and more focus on the core of the ideas.

4. Five things are important in human relationship: There are five things important in human relationship and they are predicting behavior, adapting to the environment, modifying our behavior, building stronger relationship, and gaining credibility. Predicting behavior means that we should guess the meaning of other peoples behaviors. Adapting to the environment means we have ability to adapt the change of environment so we should try our best to adapt the new environment. Modifying behavior means we should not express our feeling directly in front of the public. Building stronger relationship means we usually have best friend or close friend among the people we know. Lastly, gaining credibility means we should build our credibility.

5. Difference between hearing and listening: There was important difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is one natural sense while listening is intentional sense. That means listening requires focus and attention. When we are closing our eyes, we can easier to focus because we tend to listen carefully. I learned that closing our eyes can help me to listen more carefully from my heart.

6. Be an active listener: As I have mentioned, a good listener is very important for a speaker and there are some tips for becoming an active listener. For example, we should keep an open mind while listening to other people. When I am listening the presentation from other people, I am excited to learn the new knowledge but not challenge with the ideas. I also learned that taking selective note is very important because we cannot remember all the details after the presentation so note- taking process is very important. After the presentation, we usually give the feedback to the presenter and positive feedback can help the speaker to improve his/her presentation skills.

7. Holding different views during the group discussion: When we are holding different views with our groupmates in the discussion, we should not fight back immediately. Instead, we should calm down and find a better solution. We also should not show a black face during the presentation because this behavior is rude and disrespectful.

8. Group presentation skills: Presentation skills are also required in a group presentation. For example, we should introduce our group members and the topic of presentation before we start our topic because it helps the audiences to know who we are and what we are going to present. Eye contacts and smiles are also important in the presentation because they help to express our friendliness. The most important skill is that we should show our enthusiasms. If we are not excited about our topic, we cannot expect our audiences interested in it. Therefore, we have to show passion for our topic through our tone, facial expressions and gestures.

9. About Google: Since our group business report topic is Google, I have found many information of Google. Although Google is very successful as a search engine in the world, there are some disadvantages of Google company. For example, Google might show the invalid clicks on the ads to the advertisers because of the click fraud. When we are using the Google internet search engine, we receive advertisements for commercial sites.

10. Power of teamwork: In fact, English is not my native language and my presentation skills is very bad even not enough for this class. I am glad that I have good groupmates and they have helped me a lot in this semester. For example, they would remind me the deadline of the homework and borrow their notes to me. In every group discussion, they would speak slowly so I would not miss any important ideas. They also encouraged me to speak more in the group presentation so I would have better performance in the presentation. They make me understand the power of the teamwork and corporation so I appreciate them very much.

I am very glad that I am in this class because of my good professor, groupmates and classmates. Because of my poor oral and listening skills, sometimes I feel so hard in this class. However, my groupmates really help me a lot and I really understand the power of the teamwork and corporation. To be honest, I have learned many important writing and presentation skills in this class. I believe these skills are important in my future career.